fog, rain, snow, and a wind so violent that we could scarcely carry our
mainsail, every trace of our way was lost. For, as we were expecting to
avoid the ice so as to pass out, the wind had already closed up the
passage, so that we were obliged to return to the other tack. We were
unable to remain longer than a quarter of an hour on one tack before taking
another, in order to avoid the numerous masses of ice drifting about on all
sides. We thought more than twenty times that we should never escape with
our lives. The entire night was spent amid difficulties and hardships.
Never was the watch better kept, for nobody wished to rest, but to strive
to escape from the ice and danger. The cold was so great, that all the
ropes of the vessel were so frozen and covered with large icicles that the
men could not work her nor stick to the deck. Thus we ran, on this tack and
that, awaiting with hope the daylight. But when it came, attended by a fog,
and we saw that our labor and hardship could not avail us anything, we
determined to go to a mass of ice, where we should be sheltered from the
violent wind which was blowing; to haul everything down, and allow
ourselves to be driven along with the ice, so that when at some distance
from the rest of the ice we could make sail again, and go back to the
above-mentioned bank and manage as before, until the fog should pass away,
when we might go out as quickly as possible. Thus we continued the entire
day until the morning of the next day, when we set sail, now on this tack
now on that, finding ourselves everywhere enclosed amid large floes of ice,
as if in lakes on the mainland. At evening we sighted a vessel on the other
side of one of these banks of ice, which, I am sure, was in no less anxiety
than ourselves. Thus we remained four or five days, exposed to these risks
and extreme hardships, until one morning on looking out in all directions,
although we could see no opening, yet in one place it seemed as if the ice
was not thick, and that we could easily pass through. We got under weigh,
and passed by a large number of _bourguignons_; that is, pieces of ice
separated from the large banks by the violence of the winds. Having reached